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Julia Chang - PhD

Professor, Biological Sciences, Physical Therapy

PhD, University of Rochester, Department of Neurobiology and AnatomyMS, University of Rochester, Department of Neurobiology and AnatomyBS, University of California, Irvine, Department of Biology with Political Science, minor

Biography

Dr. Chang has been a member of the full-time faculty since 2001. Dr. Chang is also a researcher at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, Pediatric Epilepsy Research Laboratory. The goal of the laboratory is to use surgically resected tissue to determine molecular and pathophysiological mechanisms underlying epileptogenesis. The overall goal of the lab is to understand and develop translational therapies to manage childhood epilepsy. The lab has also successfully established the UCLA Rare Epilepsies and Brain Disease Tissue Bank (REBDTB) and the UCLA Neurosurgery BioBank to bank specimens from surgeries for research purposes (http://neurosurgery.ucla.edu/rare-epilepsies-tissue-bank). It is the hope of the lab that by understanding the mechanisms of infantile epilepsy, new therapeutic approaches to treating infantile epilepsy will be developed.

Research interests:

Infantile epilepsy is a known neurological disorder affecting infants and children. In cases where anti-epilepsy drugs (AEDs) cannot control seizures, children with therapeutic-resistant infantile epilepsy such as cortical dysplasia, tuberous sclerosis complex, Rasmussens encephalitis (RE), Hemimegalencephaly, strokes and other rare brain diseases of children linked with epilepsy require neurosurgical resections of brain tissue to manage the frequent seizures.